FONT

SHARE THIS

MORE STORIES

Oregon's volunteers puts state in national top 10

Annual Volunteering in America report says state and region tops for people who give their time to all sorts of groups.

Are you volunteering somewhere right now? According to a new national report, that's probably what lots of you are doing.

Oregon ranks No. 3 in the nation for people who volunteer their time at all sorts of organizations, according to the 2018 Volunteering in America report by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

According to the report, about 43.2 percent Oregonians volunteered last year. About 1.4 million volunteers gave 177.7 million hours of service, worth an estimated $4.2 billion. In addition, 61.9 percent of percent of residents participated in "informal volunteering," which includes activities like helping neighbors or watching each other's children, according to the report.

Oregon also ranks second for volunteer service by baby boomers and third for volunteering by parents.

"Each and every day, ordinary Americans are stepping up to support their fellow citizens to help with needs both great and small. This is especially true in Oregon, where residents have much to be proud of," said Barbara Stewart, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The report also ranked the Portland region (including Vancouver, Wash.) No. 5 for volunteering, with 44.3 percent of residents volunteering more than 863,000 hours of service, worth an estimated $2.2 billion. About 62.2 percent donate to charity and a third report doing something positive for their neighborhood, according to the report.

Overall, the 2018 Volunteering in America report found that 77.4 million adults (30.3 percent) volunteered through an organization last year. Americans volunteered nearly 6.9 billion hours, worth an estimated $167 billion in economic value, based on the Independent Sector's estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour for 2017.

The federal Corporation for National and Community Service oversees the AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs. Information for the annual volunteering report was collected through a supplement to the monthly Current Population Survey sent to about 60,000 households (approximately 100,000 adults), by the U.S. Census Bureau on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.